briefly battled a McLaren MP4-12C... briefly
 

this is not a racing story... more of a "two gentleman drivers who happened upon a road together" story. :D

Met up with a friend today and was headed home afterwards... didn't have anything to do so I decided to take the long way home... the twisty way. This is a short backroad that is not too much of a major thoroughfare so when you are lucky, you can get this road all to yourself. I love this road and have driven it many times. I will not say the name of the road, to protect the identity of the innocent and the secrecy of the road ;) So I turn on to this road and ... what's that behind me? A pair of bright headlights, HIDs... within a few seconds I realize it's a McLaren. Oh snap! It's like the epic Motor Trend Best Drivers' Car comparo, only with me cast as the pudgy bespectacled Jonny Lieberman. And probably Randy Pobst behind the wheel of the McLaren.

My BRZ is totally stock motor and suspension. I already know how this is going to end, but I know in my heart I have to give it a go. So I floor it and we charge into the canyon together, engines roaring. His a lot louder than mine of course. We go into the first few turns hot -- for me it's flat out. When I have time to glance in the rearview he is right there with me. I maintain a ferocious pace, this might have been the fastest I've ever taken these corners. It's a tight snaking road, and you get to the point where you start slowing down not because you don't have mechanical grip, you slow down because there are blind corners and you don't know what might be around the next corner. I think in a few of these corners, I "outbraved" the McLaren because I carried more speed through the turns and he slowed down, so I could see that he dropped back. Perhaps he wasn't as familiar with the roads, or perhaps he wanted to give me some space. But a few turns later he was back on my tail.

We carried on this way for maybe a quarter mile, maybe half mile. Hard to say for sure. Then we came upon slower traffic -- a VW Jetta doing it's own normal thing. We slowed down and formed up behind it. And I thought, with some relief, here is my honorable way out. After perhaps another half mile of following it, a small turnout came up. The Jetta didn't take it. I nudged my BRZ to the right to give the McLaren enough room to pass and slowed. He came around and now we were VW - McLaren - BRZ. Now closely following the McLaren, I rolled down my window and waited for what I knew would come. The next patch of road that was semi straight, that V8 roared and off went the McLaren, passing around the VW in a matter of seconds. I wasn't going to try the same thing, I knew how short these straights were and I just didn't have the power to pass if the VW didn't cooperate. And a good thing too as we passed oncoming traffic a few turns later. So I followed meekly behind it for a while longer, when it finally pulled out to let me pass and I picked up my pace once more, the McLaren was nowhere to be seen. I eventually caught up to another car, an Acura TL, and passed that one on one of the longer straights but before long I reached the end of this fairly short route. Did not see the McLaren again.

So that's my story. I don't know what was going through the head of the McLaren driver, whether he thought "oh good show, this BRZ's got heart", or it was "what is this ricey rubbish, make way, peasant!". I just know that we had a rip roaring good time and it was a memorable highlight to my day. :)

I had a big grin on my face as I drove the rest of the way home, and it just got even bigger when I got a call from the local Subaru dealership, asking if I was interested in buying a WRB BRZ they had available, and my response was "actually, I'm driving one right now. But thank you for calling." :D

Or he was thinking, "I don't want to be in the next Mclaren FR-S crash"

Anyways stay safe and thanks for the good read.

Word


I-Tapatalk

:DSounds like fun, regardless if he was talking his time, with the confidence it will be over soon enough. You never saw him again, well that was his plan the whole time.

S,o a Mc Laren was behind you for a 1/4 mile....

I personally would've given him an earlier passing signal upon the very next straight... :bellyroll:

I know that road pretty well... basically in the first mile or so there are no safe passing points. So my only choices were to 1) hold him up or 2) hold him up LESS.
:burnrubber:

then I turned out at the first available spot. :thumbsup:

cool story bro! I bet you had adrenaline like a muthaf** lol. Sounds so fun

Just messing around with you... I was jokingly treating the moment like in a DE event at the track, lol. :D

I lol'd at the peasant remark ;)

yeah it was quite a rush... the kind of feeling you only get when either an exotic supercar or a police car pulls up behind you.

LOL yeah I've done a few HPDE events and on my first one the instructors gave me a 5/5 for courtesy... diligently pointed by all cars who wanted to pass since my car was so much slower on the straights. :sigh:

Hey, at least you did better than me when it comes to courtesy!

By the way, our car may be a bit slow on the straights, but it's not as slow as folks make it to be... Especially if you can manage to add to your momentum by keeping steady on the throttle ahead of time and building / planning (looking ahead) for a greater exit speed out of the corner leading to the long straight. In turn, this car can be surprisingly fast when approaching a straight and then onto it... Making it more possible to close the gap on higher-powered vehicles.

"Briefly held up a McLaren MP4-12C... briefly"

Still haven't seen on of those in the flesh yet! I am jelly.

In reality, with daily traffic, the difference in capabilities would not be that great since they are never reached. I regularly get trounced by lesser cars not because they are better drivers but because they are gutsier and willing to take risks I wouldn't. That's when that Metro can beat the Maserati.

Of course, it's a different story on a canyon road without traffic like this situation. Good story bro.